News from Auburn: Friday Nov 21, 2008


In this issue:
A tale of two pizzas
And the result
Sometimes celebration = stupidity
"Where is my hairbrush?"
Author! Author!
The kids

Has it been a boring week?  Well, relative to the last few weeks, absolutely!

A tale of two pizzas
In the mid 90's Viva, the kids and I went to visit Viva's sister Katie and her family in Erie Pennsylvania.  While there, we went to Niagara Falls and, on the way back to Erie, stopped at a Pizzeria Uno's where I ordered some of that good deep dish pizza.  A short time later, the waitress came to me and said, "We got your order wrong, but the good news is that you get both pizzas and they're free."

It's not good theology, but my immediate reaction was "Ok, God, you're letting me know that you've got a handle on things.  Whatever goes wrong, it'll be ok."  The next day we started to drive back to Auburn.  On the way back (1) one of the windows of our van, damaged in Hurricane Opal, came loose, (2) we heard about a tornado warning in Chattanooga Tennessee, so we stopped at a hotel to wait it out, and (3) the next day, as we reached Chattanooga, our van's alternator froze up and shredded every belt it touched.  In each case we "just happened" to be at an exit where what we needed was available to make or get repairs or to get shelter.

What does that 13 year old story have to do with this week?

Well, Friday some friends asked us to go out for pizza with them.  (One of their daughters is a violin student of mine, or will be again when I start back up.)  The restaurant messed up our order.  We got the 2nd pizza free, and immediately my mind started running.  I related the story above to my friends and wondered what to expect.  We fed four college students with the leftovers.  After that, this happened:

And the result
Tuesday, Nov 18 was the 9 month anniversary of when Dr. Royal showed me X-ray with a white blob "that's not supposed to be there."  On the 8 month anniversary, Oct 18, I was admitted to the hospital with breathing trouble because of being taken off of steroids.  The 9 month anniversary was much different!

November 18 Viva and I went again to see Dr. Graves, my local oncologist.  My  blood work is as normal as one could ask, and all of my current   symptoms appear to be related to my treatment and not the disease.  As   a result, she said she has a very hard time believing that the tumor  is still active.  It was good to see her noticeably more relaxed than in the past.  She's been a great source of strength for us.

Now don't start celebrating immediately: this isn't a diagnosis, it's intuition based on symptoms (or lack of them) and years of experience.  We won't know for sure until I get the CT/PET scans in January, but  for now it appears that I can look forward to a normal life again. :-)

Sometimes celebration = stupidity 
Did I say don't start celebrating?  Well, I need to take my own advice.  After I got done with Dr. Graves I decided to splurge and have some chips and salsa to celebrate.  Now, in retrospect, you may agree that this was a really stupid idea.  After all, why was I in the hospital a couple of weeks ago?  Oh yeah, a bleeding stomach that showed evidence of erosion, etc.  I'm even going for a biopsy on Monday to check out a suspicious spot that Dr. Gilbert saw a couple of weeks ago. Yet  I chowed down on a bunch of chips and mild Kroger generic salsa.  

Dumb.  My tummy hurts.  

My sister Kathy says  PhD stands for "permanent head damage."  She knows.  She's got one too.

"Where is my hairbrush?"
Speaking of Kathy, she saw my latest picture yesterday (see below) and bemoaned that we never sang me the VeggieTales hairbrush song over the summer while I was bald.  "Why do you need a hairbrush?  You don't have any hair!"

Author! Author!
Several of my readers have encouraged me to turn the weekly newsletters from our cancer experience into a book.  I finally gave in and started working on it a few weeks ago - actually, while I was in the hospital.  I've got about 180 pages.  The first 40 pages or so I've gone over 3 times and have now submitted them to a review panel of Viva and 5 other readers for their feedback.  After that come the business decisions: get a publisher or self publish?  Get an agent or work directly with an editor?  How much of my royalties to donate to the American Cancer Society?  Should I celebrate with salsa sauce?

We'll see what happens.  So far the reactions from my readers have been positive with a few writing style suggestions.  The nice thing about having 6 opinions is I can pick the one I like best.  :-)

The kids
Kayla is in Chicago at a speech disorders conference.  She's loving it and has a whole new level of enthusiasm for speech therapy for kids with certain disabilities.  She's getting ready to apply to a number of graduate schools to continue her study.  She's also very cold because the high temperature in Chicago (35F) is the low temperature here in Alabama.

Adam is working very very hard to keep up with school, etc.  He's also taken up free running and enjoys showing us his injuries.  "The apple don't fall far from the tree."

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I'll write again in a week or so.


Posted: Fri - November 21, 2008 at 01:26 PM           | |

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